


29. Tattoos

by Jensee, Unicorn (Jensee)



Series: Kinktober 2019 [22]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst fluffy smutt, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Masturbation, Tattoos, there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 08:41:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jensee/pseuds/Jensee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jensee/pseuds/Unicorn
Summary: Oscar doesn't expect the tattoos, although he probably should have.That said, he does like them.





	29. Tattoos

**Author's Note:**

> We're so close to the end of October and ngl I'm gonna be happy when this is over lol

Their first times are frantic, savage, violent. They reflect the desperate times they found themselves in. The world itself is a tempest, and everything they knew, everything they’ve ever had has been stripped away from them, thorn from their grasps and reduced to splinters before their very eyes. That first time he gives in and kisses Zolf, as much in anger, and in annoyance and in desperation, as in desire, it feels like being in the eye of the storm, as if the roaring winds are giving him a respite so he can bottle up his own violence and unleash it on Zolf’s tough skin, on his hungry lips.

Their first times leave them debauched and sweaty, covered in tatters of dignities and angry welts. It’s a relief to be angry about something he can control, to be mean and violent in an environment that gives back all the hurt and the bitterness. It’s better than the void around them, that the gaping emptiness - the shivering betrayal of this new world.

Nobody can stay angry forever, though.

Not even Oscar.

Not even Zolf.

He’s the first to break.

He shouldn’t be surprised. Zolf went toe to toe with a god and told him to fuck off. All Oscar has ever done is bend every which way and slalom out of every every situation, out of every hard pass, faking his way to the top and performing his best fits of equilibrium to stay there. He’s never has to take a hit head-on. He always could slither away.

You don’t escape the world ending.

It doesn’t even take much. He’s distracted, and he wants a quick relief, so when he pulls Zolf on top of him, he’s trying not to think, to let the fire consume him and burn out the gaping desperation growing hot and large in his chest.

“Hey, are you okay?”

It doesn’t take much, and suddenly Oscar cannot bend further. It’s a silent fissure, dripping tears into the sheets, until it cracks and breaks and he finds himself in pieces.

When the swell of the void in Oscar stomach has receeded, they’re in bed, and Zolf has fallen asleep cradling his head against his torso.

From then on, desperation slowly becomes something else. It become a heaven in a dying world, a touch of softness, of fragility under the hard cocoon of protection. They bare themselves to one another, figuratively and literally. For the first time, Oscar see Zolf’s naked skin.

He has tattoos everywhere.

That somehow surprises Oscar, although it probably shouldn’t. Both sailors and dwarves are known for their appreciation of the ever lasting art, after all. There must be something reassuring, at sea, to know there’s one thing you can never lose.

Although, Oscar muses, Zolf lost a lot more than this to the hungry waves.

They don’t talk much about the past, about what Zolf went through before he answered his call for help, about the new scars across Oscar’s face, only halfway done healing when they’d seen each other again. So instead, Oscar maps his body, traces the dark lines of the tattoos delicately, tries to make up stories for them and to discover more of Zolf, line after line. 

Some are obvious, like the trident coming out of waves resting on Zolf’s breastbone and hugging his throat like a shadowy, possessive hand. The first time he sees it, Oscar’s surprised by a pang of jealousy. It’s a sharp reminder that Zolf, like any servant of the gods, is already claimed by something that Oscar can’t even dream to equal. No matter how much he touches Zolf, no matter how many times he possesses him with his hands, his lips, tongue… his skin - his very soul - had been marked by Poseidon before him. And Oscar’s resentment at that realization is sharper that he ever would have imagined.  
Zolf himself doesn’t see to care. They don’t talk about it, but Oscar knows he’d tried to break away from Poseidon, to forsake his own god, despite being his obvious golden child. Zolf makes defying his deity looks like no more than having a quarrel with an ex, which baffles Oscar every time he attempts to wrap his head around it.

There’s an easy story behind the portrait huggin the dwarf’s biceps as well: a younger dwarf, young and smiling, his hair and his beard dishveled by a gentle brise animated by a low level charm. A memento for a loved one, no doubt. Oscar never learnt his name, but he knows Zolf had lost his brother long before they even met.

Other stories are harder to decipher. On Zolf’s other arm, he puzzles over the delicate flowers cradled in the dip of his elbow, a bouquet of winter miracles at odds with the dwarf’s gruff exterior. Maybe it’s a memory from home, Oscar thinks, maybe a good luck charm, to find land and life even at the more desperate moments. Maybe his poetic soul is reaching too far and Zolf just wanted some pretty flowers to rest on his skin forever.

On the dip of his back curls a giant serpent, its mouth open and threatening - Jormungang, the giant sea serpent? Something else? And a giant squid battles a ship on his abdomen, the inked tentacles dipping down low towards his navel.

He finds smaller pieces as well: a scandinavian compass on a shoulderblade, a simplified fish hiding just under his hairline, an anchor at the beginning of his thigh, a thin line of dwarven runes underlining a rib.

There is the beginning of dark ribbon started from his left thigh, the specks of ink twisted and run over by scars where his sectionned leg ends, and it makes Oscar wonder how his legs looked before they were crushed and discarded, one after the other. Did they offer more ink, more stories running over the dwarf’s skin? Did they reveal secrets lost to the sea that Zolf had chosen not to tell again?

“You like them?” murmurs Zolf when he wakes up, his eyes opened with an expression that’s languid rather than severe for once. It’s early morning, so early that they’re not supposed to take their posts for a few hours yet. Oscar hasn’t been able to sleep, like so many nights nowadays, so he’s taken up tracing the dark lines across Zolf’s hard muscles, like so many nights nowadays.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No. It’s nice.”

Oscar finishes tracing the curl of one tentacle where it has taken hold of a broken mast.

“They’re beautiful. And they say something about you.”

What do they say about the middle of the night? Time for confessions? It certainly feels that way right about now.

“Did you ever think about getting one for yourself?”

Zolf seems relaxed like Oscar has rarely seen him before, unbothered it seems, by his gaze and hand roaming the whole expanse of his skin.

“Not really. It wouldn’t have been proper for someone of my status, and to be honest I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Proper…” Zolf snorts, but it doesn’t sound all that mean. “I’m sure you’ve never been anything but _ proper _.”

“I am very proper, thank you very much.”

“_ Sure _.”

Oscar kisses him to shut him up. Zolf doesn’t resist, probably tired enough to let the pique go, and he doesn’t protest either when Oscar settles back against him and resumes his exploration.

There’s something hypnotic about the path of inky black designs that confuses Oscar’s gaze, until he follows only lines without being able to parse the wider picture of the drawings on Zolf’s skin. He grazes them with light fingers, brushes with his lips the markings closest to him, lets the moment sink into him. He barely realizes than Zolf’s breathing is growing heavier and quicker until the dwarf lets out an unmistakable moan.

Oscar looks down to see his cock is starting to fill, raising slightly over Zolf’s patch of hair. The dwarf has his eyes closed, his head angled away from Oscar as if he’s trying to hide from his gaze.

“Do you like that?” he murmurs, and makes sure to brush his nails down on the path of the design low on Zolf’s stomach.

The dwarf half-opens his eyes to glare at him.

“No? That’s a shame...”

Before he can snatch his hand away, he’s stopped by a firm grip on his wrist. It’s impossible to contain his laugh when Zolf drags his hand back towards his skin.

“Shut up.” mutters the dwarf with a sigh, and Oscar feels is own smile widens as he resume his carresses.

He travels down Zolf’s body, regretfully leaving the patch of ink to graze the interior of his thigh. The dwarf groans softly and arch a bit under the touch, trying and failing to push into Oscar’s hand. It makes Oscar smile, and he savours teasing Zolf a few moments more before he complies with the silent demand.

Zolf groans and open his eyes fully when Oscar starts to jerk his cock, quickly growing fully hard under the ministrations. With his other hand, Oscar keeps following the path of Zolf’s ink, on his torso, on his throat and neck. The dwarf shivers at every touch and sighs with relief every time Oscar strokes him.

They take their time, but soon enough, Zolf tenses under him and starts to come, his come spilling over his skin and covering the inky black lines of his tattoos with a pearly white.

Oscar grunts at the sight, and it doesn’t take him long to follow Zolf with his own orgasm, climbing on top of him so he can spill on the tattooed skin as well, both their come mixing over the squid’s tentacles.

“You really are a pervert, uh.” Mutters Zolf with an eye on the mess. “Are you gonna piss on me next?”

Oscar gives him a devilish smile and a peck on the cheek, without responding.

“Wait, no. Seriously, please don’t piss on me.”

He laughs, and gets up to fetch something to wipe Zolf with.

“You know,” says Zolf when he settles back next to him, “you don’t really have to be proper anymore, if you ever want to get one yourself.”

They’ve never talked about Oscar’s new scars, not properly at least, but he supposes it’s not that hard to reach a conclusion as to their origin.

“I guess so.”

He puts his head over Zolf’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Tries to sleep until the sun comes up and he has to be Oscar Wilde again.


End file.
